Golfers the world round know that the finest traditional golf shoes are made and have been made throughout the 20th century by one shoemaker, The FootJoy Company. FootJoy began its operation as the Burt & Packard Shoe Company founded in Brockton Massachusetts in 1857. In 1927 the company took the name of its premier line of shoes, the FootJoy. Since then they have been the leading golf shoe on the PGA tour, the # 1 selling golf shoe in England and theundisputed leader in the manufacture of Golf Shoes in the world. The vintage and antique FootJoys represent the pinnacle of craftsmanship and luxury, and are highly prized by collectors and aficionado of fine shoes.

This and one or two other Lizard Footjoys among my listings are perhaps the finest and the rarest golf shoes to be seen outside of a museum....and certainly the most beautiful. The skins are artfully arranged, with fine and coarse patterned pieces distributed for maximum effect, and all perfectly matched between shoes.

In response to frequent inquiry, the conversion of such a shoe to a street shoe is a relatively simple matter; the spikes are quickly removable (they unscrew) and the fixture of a thin rubber sole (Vibram or Topy) by a local shoemaker completes the process. I will be pleased to have the conversion done by my expert shoemaker upon your request.

The modern version of this shoe when still made by FootJoy cost $1500 plus tax, required 16-20 weeks for delivery, was not available for export outside the United States if ordered directly from the company and was non-returnable to Footjoy if it did not fit you. [My sales are fully returnable for this or any other shoe, and, of course, available to Europe or elsewhere.]

In March 2008 FootJoy closed it last American-based factory in Brockton, Massachusetts. While the firm continues to produce large numbers of sneaker-like golf shoes in its off-shore facilities, this last bastion of old-world craftsmanship in golf shoes is relegated to history, and with it the last source for us of special-order lizard and other exotic-skinned golf and street shoes, the finest in the world. For the moment, a small coterie of craftsmen remain to perform repairs but the 103 highly skilled craftsmen, some of whom had worked in the Field Street Factory since the introduction of the "Classic" line of shoes in 1959, are gone. Shoemaking became a major industry in Brockton in the 1880s, and remained so well into the 20th century, but with the exception of the FootJoy plant, shoemaking has already been extinct in Brockton for decades. Once more the painstaking traditional Goodyear welted shoe is driven out of the market by the far cheaper cemented shoe.

Size: US 7D....UK 6E.....Continental 40D, for the mid-width foot. This is the only example of this shoe that I have ever seen in this small size and we are not likely to see another one again.